More and more people think about how to improve their home security these days. Long gone are the days of only business premises having CCTV cameras or big chunky ugly looking cameras on the walls. These days, home security has got a lot smarter; cameras are smaller, we can view live feeds directly from our smartphones and they even have two-way audio and sirens! And cameras are not limited to the big blocky CCTV cameras that we used to see but are also in our doorbells, clocks, photo frames and we have them in the house as well as outdoors. And they are used for more than just home security – they can be used for keeping an eye on elderly relatives, kids or even the pets. With so many options we have been trying out the Annke Crater Pro Indoor Security Camera, a 4MP indoor camera with human and pet detection, motion detection, smart tracking, 2-way audio and vivid day & night view.
The Annke Crater Pro Indoor Security Camera is a high-quality 4MP (2560×1440) dual-band WiFi enabled indoor security camera that works on 2.4 Ghz / 5 Ghz wireless networks, always ensuring a stable and reliable connection. It features 350° Pan & 60° Tilt, Human & Sound Detection, Smart Tracking, Two-Way Audio, Siren, Night Vision, Cloud and Local Storage (you can use up to a 128GB microSD card), it works with Amazon’s Alexa, sends instant alerts and notifications to your phone, and has real-time live views from your smartphone.
In the box:
- Crater Pro Camera
- Type A to Micro USB Cable
- Power Adapter
- Bracket
- Mounting Screw Bag
- User Manual
The Crater Pro indoor security camera looks like a ball mounted on a small cube base. It can be situated on a flat surface or mounted on the ceiling. It measures approx. 11×7.5×7.5cm, taking up a very small footprint. The cable from the mains adapter to the camera is about 2 metres (enough for most situations but if mounting on the ceiling you might want longer).
This indoor security camera is very simple to set up. The first thing to do is to download the MyAnnke app to your smartphone. Once downloaded and installed you just follow the on-screen instructions to set up the camera in minutes. You can use a 2.4Ghz or 5GHz wireless network. We particularly liked that when setting up the camera it makes a siren noise that your phone must hear to confirm that it is you setting it up, we thought that this was quite a good security feature.
Once the camera is paired with the app you need to decide where you are going to store recordings: you can use the AWS cloud storage (comes with a 7 day free trial after which you will be charged $2.99 per month) or you can use local storage by adding a microSD card to the camera (up to 128GB). There are some settings that you will need to go through and enable/disable depending on your needs: date and time, notifications for motion detection, sound detection, active tracking etc. You can also flip the screen if you are mounting the camera on the ceiling.
Once the camera settings are suited to your needs your home is now being monitored by a camera that will record any motion or sound events, track active movement around the room from humans and pets, sound a siren if required and allows to two-way communication so you can hear what is being said in a room and even speak back to comfort kids, elderly relatives and pets or just to scare off an intruder by letting them know you are watching and recording and that you have informed the police.
The quality of the recordings is excellent. Recording at a 4MP resolution and 2560×1440 pixels it ensures that every detail of the room the camera is installed in is clearly visible. And it doesn’t just have a narrow field of view, with its viewing angle of up to 350 degrees horizontally and 60 degrees vertically you can monitor most of the room without any blind spots.
The camera can pick up human sound and track and follow any movement within the room, so anyone entering the room is always being watched and recording. The tracking works quite smoothly and fast. Whilst it is doing so it will send an alert to your phone or tablet so that you can also view in real-time.
The two-way audio works well. The quality of the speaker isn’t the greatest, we found it to be a bit on the tinny side, but it is clear and understandable. You can have real-time conversations.
We found that the camera works just as well at night as it does during the daylight. It has an infrared night vision distance of 6 metres (20ft). Images recorded at night were clear to make out and very good quality.
With high quality recording, storage space can be used up very quickly but the Crater Pro uses advanced H.264+ encoding tech to compress file sizes efficiently, up to 50% more than files using the previous H.264 coding, without degrading image quality so you can store more (especially when using local storage).
We love that not only the person who installed the camera originally can monitor the camera. You can share the feed to this camera with others in the household, friends or family. You can use the app to generate a QR code so that you can share the camera feed with friends or family so that they can also monitor the camera through the app on their own devices (they will need to download and install the app and use it to scan the shared QR code). This is excellent so that one person or device is not solely used to monitor the device or get notifications. It is also simple to remove sharing privileges should you need to.
And for those of use that like our devices to integrate with each other, the Crater Pro works well with Alexa. Once paired up with Alexa (you will need a device with a screen to view video such as the Echo Show) you can use voice commands to quickly show you the live video feed and play recorded video, making it easy for you to manage your home security from anywhere in the house.
It is also very simple to watch a live view and any stored recording through the app on your smartphone or tablet.
Overall, we think that the Annke Crater Pro indoor security camera is a good camera with high-quality recording and features. It works fast and seamlessly. It is easy to set up, use and monitor and the notifications are fast, especially when away from home.
Whilst the camera is excellent for what it does, we did have some niggles with it. Our biggest issue with it was that it doesn’t have an obvious option to turn off the camera or to put it in to privacy mode whilst at home, apart from unplugging it. This means that whilst we are at home the camera was always monitoring, tracking and recording (including conversations). Whilst it is good to know that it works well, when we are using the room the camera is in as part of our daily routine we don’t necessarily want or need everything recorded, or receiving constant notifications. You can disable the notifications but then you must remember to enable when leaving home.
Our other small niggles are that the camera is mains powered and doesn’t have a battery backup, so in the event of a power cut the camera obviously won’t be monitoring or recording. The camera also does not support SD card encryption, which means anyone who has access to your SD card can view your videos.
We like the camera. It is excellent at monitoring and recording high-quality images that are very clear and easy to view. We love that it sends instant notifications to our phones. It is a very good choice for anyone that wants affordable smart home monitoring that is easy to use. The smart tracking feature is excellent and the two-way audio to check in on family or pets is great. The battery backup and SD card encryption would be nice features but not essential, but we would really like to have a privacy mode feature to stop the monitoring and recordings whilst we are at home, something that could be turned on or off with a click in the app. The addition of being able to schedule times that we could set up to so that you could have only monitoring at night for example would be great.
The Annke Crater Pro is an easy to use camera that with a few tweaks (privacy mode) could be perfect.
Rating: 4/5
RRP: £49.99
For more information, please visit
- https://www.annke.com/products/crater-pro
- https://uk.annke.com/products/crater-pro
- https://fr.annke.com/products/crater-pro
- https://de.annke.com/products/crater-pro
- https://es.annke.com/products/crater-pro
Also available to buy from Amazon here.
